


Who You Gonna Call?

by gateship



Series: Avengers Assemble [16]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Incredible Hulk (2008), Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M, is the rubber duck theory an actual thing?, suspicious jane foster, team science sticking up for each other, uses all the tv clips from the avengers movie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-11
Updated: 2017-06-11
Packaged: 2018-11-12 21:24:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11170374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gateship/pseuds/gateship
Summary: A team of lawyers and PR agents actually.After the events of The Avengers, the team finds there might be a few issues.





	Who You Gonna Call?

Even though it had been a week since Jane and Darcy had arrived in New York and just under that since Thor left for Asgard, they were still in Tony Stark’s penthouse. Jane said it was just until Thor came back from delivering Amora and Skurge to the Allfather, but Darcy was totally on board with sticking around a little longer. They were the only ones in the penthouse at this point anyways. Bruce and Betty had bounced out of New York the same day as Thor, but Barton, and Romanov had all gone back to their own New York apartments. Steve had left on a motorcycle road trip the next day despite the new misgivings about the validity of his license. Darcy was pretty sure he was back in town though. Jan and Hank had left for their own home out of state the day after Thor left and Pepper and Tony had gone back to California. Presumably the Stark Industries Board of Directors was still cranky about the aborted alien invasion and the role Stark Tower had inadvertently played in it.

Pepper had assured the two of them before she and Tony left that they could stay in the penthouse as long as they liked. Agent Romanov had dropped by a couple days after Thor left to let Jane know that Director Fury wanted her input on the post invasion readings they’d gotten from the Tesseract before Thor took it to Asgard. Jane begrudgingly agreed but refused to go into SHIELD to actually look them over until they released Erik into her care.

They had yet to do that. Jane and Darcy had gone to visit him, but he hadn’t been 100% lucid at the time. Physically he was fine, but mentally he hadn’t fully recovered from Amora’s brainwashing. Nobody knew why it was taking Erik longer to come out of it fully compared to the others. Being around Erik like that had upset Jane, so Darcy took it upon herself to inform Agent Coulson (Darcy felt he should be on medical leave given the spear partway through a lung thing) that she would be taking over communication regarding Erik’s status. Jane hadn’t noticed yet, but there’d only been one message since the visit anyways. And that hadn’t even really been anything that didn’t already know, more like a follow up to their visit.

The Avengers were supposed to be coming back to the penthouse for some sort of SHIELD requested meeting though, so hopefully there was more information on Erik’s wellbeing.

 

Tony was the first of anyone to arrive, sans Pepper Potts. Jane and Darcy had about a ten-minute lead time on his arrival thanks to Jarvis suddenly greeting them, which startled the crap out of both of them. After Tony and Pepper had headed back towards California, the penthouse had gone metaphorically dark. There’d been some explanation about how even though Jarvis could maintain multiple residences and locations, it was a strain on his computing systems and routinely just remained wherever Tony was.

Clint and Natasha arrived together, followed shortly by Jan and Hank and then Steve. Then they just had to wait for Fury or whoever from SHIELD to show up. Darcy figured she and Jane would be relegated to the bedrooms for the duration of the discussion so she was spending whatever time before SHIELD showed up out where the food was.

Jan (who was super great) had informed her that when they arrived at the penthouse post Battle for New York there was zero food anywhere in the penthouse. Carolyn had brought in the food the first few days apparently. Since then Tony had been ordering the food in, even after he and Pepper had left for Malibu. And boy, did he have some good food brought in.

Plus, there was the side benefit of being able to surreptitiously eye Agent hot archer. (She was 100% lying to herself that he didn’t know about it. He was a spy and she was a 24-year-old college graduate.)

Eventually SHIELD arrived, though it was just Phil Coulson without Fury or anybody else. Darcy, presuming that was her cue to head back to the bedrooms, started to head that way.

“Miss Lewis,” Phil said. “Where might Dr. Foster be?”

“Uh, I think she’s in the bedroom on the computer,” Darcy said, freezing in place.

“She should be here for this as well as you,” Phil said.

“I can alert her to your presence,” Jarvis said.

“Thank you,” Phil said.

“Is this just because Thor’s gonna tell us anyways?” Darcy asked.

“Partially,” Phil said. “Though it does somewhat have to do with you as well.”

“Am I in trouble?” Darcy asked hesitantly.

“No, actually you may be part of the solution to the problem.”

“Agent Coulson,” Jane said. “Jarvis said you needed me.”

“Yes, if you and everyone else would have a seat?” Phil asked. He gestured to the couch. Once everyone was gathered on the couch he began. “The Director is of the opinion that the Avengers have a public relations problem.”

“Since when? We’ve only been around for a week and only done the one thing,” Tony said.

“Yeah, I’m not really sure about that either. Sure, we all watched the clips the day of, but how bad can it still be?” Jan asked.

“Wait, you guys seriously don’t know how bad it’s been?” Darcy asked. Somehow, she figured Tony Stark either didn’t or wasn’t really allowed to watch tabloid style news. The minimal interaction she had with Pepper Potts made it seem like Pepper did a lot of micromanaging for Tony Stark even though she was ostensibly his boss now.

“Well, I mean it was bad right after everything, but it should’ve calmed down by now, right?” Jan asked.

“Yeah, it’s still been bad,” Darcy said. “You guys weren’t out there in uniform cleaning up. _We_ know you were the first few days, but it’s been a week and there hasn’t been any sign of any of the Avengers.”

“Well, uh, how bad was it?” Hank asked.

“I can show you,” Phil said. He pressed a button on the remote and a video appeared on the television screen.

It was a TV interview Darcy had already seen clips of on YouTube. It wasn’t the full clip, just the old man’s response to the reporter’s question about the Avengers, not that they were called that. “Superheroes?” the old man scoffed. “In New York? Give me a break!”

Another clip began, this one of Senator Boynton. Again, not his full response, but enough the gauge his overall opinion. “These so-called heroes have to be held responsible for the destruction done to the city,” Senator Boynton said. “This was their fight? Where are they now?”

The next clip Darcy had also seen and had been filmed in Manhattan at the base of Stark Tower the morning she and Jane had arrived in New York. A couple of men cleaning things up had been pulled aside by the reporting crew and had been asked their opinion of things. Their opinion hadn’t been positive. “I mean, where the hell are they?” one of the two asked. “All this went down at Stark’s giant eyesore of a tower and I get that he’s the one that closed the portal to hell or whatever, but what’s he doing now?”

“I wanna know what that crazy lady was doing here in the first place,” the other said. “She hit up Germany and was then taken into custody by Stark and those other guys – and I don’t think that’s actually Captain America, mind you. But why’d she hit New York? Is it because Stark brought her in? If so, it’s sorta his fault the city’s tore up. They couldn’t be everywhere and people died because of it. Manhattan’s a mess, but so’s Hell’s Kitchen. You didn’t see any of the supposed heroes there.”

“And what was that green guy? Didn’t it destroy Harlem last year?” the first guy asked. “What kind of monster is that? Why was it fighting with Stark?”

“And come on, aliens? When did aliens become a thing?” the second asked, looking worried. “Do we have to worry about there being aliens now?”

“There’s more like that,” Phil said. “A lot more.”

“That would explain why Pepper’s been so busy,” Tony said.

“Has it really been like that?” Jan asked, turning to Darcy.

“I mean, there’s a lot of upset people. There were aliens and people’s homes were destroyed. And nobody could see you all helping out even if you were. And nobody knew what the Bifrost was when they saw it. And you haven’t addressed the fact that Amora and Skurge are on another planet now and that Thor’s with them.”

“So the world hates us,” Hank said.

“No, just some of the world hates you,” Darcy said. “There’s a whole lot of good reactions too.”

Phil hit the button on the remote and a new slew of images and footage appeared. A montage of muted footage that showed murals, signs, and graffiti thanking the Avengers for saving the world.

Another interview, of a mother hugging her infant close to her. “I mean, the Hulk’s pretty terrifying. But it – he? I don’t know, the Hulk saved me and my son. I’ve got to thank him for that.”

“What about when he was in Harlem last year?” the reporter asked her.

“Ah, from what I could tell of the truly terrible footage,” the woman said. “It looked like the Hulk was doing more to _save_ Harlem from that red creature. Red Hulk? I don’t know. But I do know that he saved me and my son from the aliens so if he’s watching, I want to thank him.”

“You gonna pass that info onto Bruce?” Tony asked.

“We will as soon as he resurfaces,” Phil said.

The next clip was of a group of volunteers outside of Stark Tower. Steve had been working with them undercover. The man who’d taken charge looked annoyed as he glared past the camera presumably to the reporter. Darcy had seen this footage too and the guy really had been pissed when the reporter came up.

“Look, they saved the city. They saved the world. And yeah, there was damage done. But you know what, they’ve been out here helping to deal with the damage. Captain America was out here the day of the attack helping to clear rubble.”

“What?” the reporter asked. “There weren’t any reports of that.”

The guy sighed. “Hey, my mom was a nurse during World War II. I know what Captain America looks like when he isn’t wearing the helmet.”

“So it is Captain America? The one who died during World War II,” the reporter asked.

The guy shrugged. “All I can say is that he looks a hell of a lot like the picture my mom’s got. Now, if you’ll excuse me there’s some real work that needs to be done here.”

The next clip showed a young woman, looking somewhat frazzled. She was dressed in a waitress’s uniform. “What?” she asked. “That this was somehow their fault? Captain America saved my life. Wherever he is, wherever any of them are, I just wanna say thank you. And that he doesn’t need to tip me if he comes by again.”

Phil ended the video footage.

“I did not know he recognized me,” Steve said. “Or that she did. I mean, I’ve only been to the café once. And I vaguely remember saving her, but – oh. That was when my helmet came off.”

“Well, she didn’t exactly out you. And neither did that guy,” Darcy said.

“So it’s 50-50? 40-60? What?” Tony asked.

“It depends on what you’re looking at,” Darcy said. “Overall the public’s mixed about you, but again it depends. The people of Stuttgard are super cool with you because you took down Amora, Manhattan’s about 50-50. Hell’s Kitchen residents are upset because you guys were focusing your efforts on the area surrounding the Tower, which meant that their space got hit pretty bad. To the majority of the rest of America it’s probably closer to 60% positive.”

“You got all that from social media?” Clint asked.

“She spends a lot of time on the internet,” Jane said.

“Which is why I wanted to talk to you, Miss Lewis,” Phil said.

“What does Darcy’s internet usage have to do with anything?” Jane asked suspiciously.

“She’s created a few social media accounts about the Avengers,” Phil said. “Some of which include footage from the fight that wasn’t on any news channel.” He looked pointedly at Darcy.

“Hey, I just reposted stuff from cell phone cameras,” Darcy said. “News stations don’t typically include cell footage. And I made sure not to include anything that showed faces.”

“Regardless, the footage of the Avengers directly saving people and protecting them has done a great deal to help the public perception of them, even if that perception is mostly coming from young adults and teenagers,” Phil said.

“Wait, are you saying Darcy specifically helped with that, or just cell phone footage in general?” Jan asked.

“Miss Lewis specifically,” Phil said.

“Wait, what?” Darcy asked as everyone turned to look at her.

“You apparently were the first to claim accounts with the Avengers name,” Phil said. “How is that exactly?”

“Thor told Jane your band name and nobody else knew it until the press release from Stark Industries a couple days later, so… I claimed them,” Darcy said.

“You’re not even going to ask how they found out you had them?” Jane asked.

“It’s SHIELD. They probably traced my IP address and hacked into it for the email associated with it,” Darcy shrugged. “Also, his wife’s a mutant with computer powers. So, no. I’m not going to question how they figured out it was me. Stark probably could have figured it out too.”

“I could have, but I didn’t know they existed,” Tony said.

“Anyways, you can have the domain names and the twitter handle if you want,” Darcy said. “I purposefully didn’t tweet anything but pics and footage because I figured you might want it.”

“You’ll have to discuss that with the head of Avengers Public Relations,” Phil said.

“We don’t have a head of Public Relations,” Tony said.

“Director Fury has hired someone for you. As well as someone to oversee Avengers Legal department,” Phil said.

“We don’t have one of those either,” Jan said. “We don’t have anything. We’re not even officially a group I don’t think.”

“And I don’t want to be associated with SHIELD that tightly,” Tony said. “Remember, you guys were going to build weapons out of another weapon you know very little about. A weapon that then went on to rip a hole in the sky.”

“Yes,” Phil said. “I do remember that. But there are people out there calling for you all to repay the damages done to Manhattan. Even you don’t have that much money, Stark. You can ignore it or you can address the issue. On both the legal and the public relations fronts.”

“I think I’d prefer it if we were able to vet the people Fury has hired,” Hank said.

“That’s perfectly acceptable,” Phil said. “The Director also assumed you’d take prefer that.”

“What are their names?” Tony asked. “Jarvis, start looking them up.”

“Ekaterina Sokolof has been hired as to head the Avengers’ legal department and Drake Porter has been hired for the Public Relations department,” Phil said. “Carolyn’s vetted both, but I understand your hesitance.”

“When do we get to meet them?” Natasha asked.

“They don’t work for SHIELD?” Hank asked her.

“If they do I’ve never heard of them,” she said.

“Not that we have much to do with legal or PR,” Clint added.

“They haven’t worked for SHIELD before,” Phil said. “And they’re only working for SHIELD in the respect that the Avengers don’t have any money and they’re going to need to be paid.”

“Okay, that’s a valid point,” Hank said.

“I have money,” Tony pointed out.

“You can discuss that with the Director later,” Phil said. “You can meet with the two of them later if you’d like.” He looked at Darcy specifically. “Mr. Porter would like to speak with you in particular.”

“Because of her social media accounts?” Jan asked.

“In part,” Phil said but didn’t elaborate.

“Cool,” Darcy said slowly. “That doesn’t sound ominous at all.”

“Pepper says she’s heard of Sokolof,” Tony said, staring at his phone. “Pepper says she’s good. Never heard of Porter before.”

“Well, I can arrange a meeting later if you’d like,” Phil said. “Say, five minutes?”

“They were always going to come, weren’t they?” Natasha asked.

Phil shrugged. “Blame Carolyn. She does like them though. She says they’re going to hate you, Stark.”

“Seriously though, on a scale of 1 to 10 how much does Manhattan hate us?” Jan asked. “And do people have any idea who Hank and I are?”

“I’d say a 5, but it was at an 8 and no,” Darcy said. “They’ve got no idea who Ant Man slash Giant Man and Wasp are. They are, however, very confused why Dr. Pym has two call signs. Apparently somebody heard one of you.”

“SHIELD is very confused about that as well, and the fact that you can in fact grow bigger,” Phil said. He looked at Jan. “Can you do that as well?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe I can, maybe I can’t. Maybe you’ll just have to find out on your own.”

“I’m going to take that as a yes,” Phil said. Jan just shrugged again.

“Mr. Stark, Ms. Sokolof and Mr. Porter have arrived,” Jarvis announced. “Shall I let them in?”

“Go ahead, Jarvis,” Tony said. “Send the information on them to my tablet.”

Tony had pulled a clear, glass like tablet from somewhere and began scrolling through the information that appeared on it. Darcy tried to not too obviously peer over at it in order to try and figure out how exactly it worked. She looked up when the entryway door opened.

Darcy’s first impression of [Ekaterina Sokolof](http://68.media.tumblr.com/65318ff00bcd6ef0e8cac11bc74067f4/tumblr_inline_ore4sjxKZB1qfsl1n_500.jpg) was that the woman was terrifying. The heels she was wearing made her look like she was 6 feet tall. Her calves were ridiculous, as were the biceps her sleeveless dress revealed. Frankly, she kinda looked like she could kill someone with her bare hands. The black handbag she was carrying looked simple, but probably cost more money than Darcy had in her bank account at the moment.

[Drake Porter](http://68.media.tumblr.com/50798368d491a322df20320ba4bebc15/tumblr_inline_ore4rxVU8y1qfsl1n_500.jpg) was just slightly taller than Ms. Sokolof. While he didn’t look like he could murder anyone with his bare hands he definitely looked just as intimidating, but more so in a “I’m in charge and everyone knows it” kind of manner. What he was wearing probably also cost more than Darcy currently had in her bank account.

Once the two were standing in front of the couch where everyone was gathered Sokolof spoke. “So you’re the Avengers,” she said. “As I’m sure you’ve already been made aware, I’m Ekaterina Sokolof. I’ve been hired by Director Fury to act as the head of your Legal Department. At the moment, I’m the only member of your legal department. We’ll need to fix that.”

“Why?” Tony asked. “You can’t cut it on your own?”

“Because you alone are a legal nightmare, Mr. Stark,” Sokolof said. “The group of you together, problematic at best.”

Tony frowned and then looked at Phil. “Tell me again why we can’t just use SI’s legal team?”

“Because that is a conflict of interest and can create quite a few nasty repercussions for your company,” Sokolof said. “I have spoken with the head of your legal team at Stark Industries and they agree.”

“You’ve spoken to my legal team?” Tony asked.

“How’s this going to work exactly?” Hank asked.

“The two of us will work closely together for the moment,” Porter said. “Much of what currently needs to be addressed is a combination of legal and public relations problems. Once the issues surrounding the attempted alien invasion are rectified we both can individually move on to focusing primarily on our own areas of expertise.”

“Which presumably means that someone is going to need to vet and hire teams for both of you,” Steve said. “But will that be us, you, or Fury?”

“Fury is willing to leave that up to the people in this room,” Phil said. “Though, there is already a candidate for Mr. Porter’s team.”

“And who’s that?” Clint asked.

“Miss Lewis,” Porter said. Everybody turned to look at Darcy, who was both confused and shocked. When Coulson had started talking about the whole social media thing, this is not where she’d thought the conversation was going.

“I’ve reviewed your social media accounts and posts regarding the Avengers,” he continued. “I understand that you are currently Dr. Foster’s assistant, correct?”

“She is,” Jane said. “And she’s a valuable assistant. A vital one, even.”

Darcy looked at Jane as Porter said exactly what Darcy was thinking. “She’s a bit underqualified though, wouldn’t you say? Wouldn’t a research assistant with a background in theoretical astrophysics be more useful to you?”

“I had zero background in anything Hank does, still don’t, and we work fine,” Jan said.

Darcy really liked Jan.

“I mean no offense,” Porter said. “I’m just suggesting that perhaps Miss Lewis’s talents would be better utilized elsewhere.”

“And where would that be?” Jane asked with a scowl.

“With me,” Porter said. “Public Relations is an ever-changing field,” he continued. “And, as the public’s interaction with information changes, so do the job requirements. Social media rather than traditional media is becoming an important element of that.”

“I don’t understand any of that,” Clint said.

“He wants me to work on Avengers PR via social media,” Darcy said slowly. “Why exactly do you want me to do that rather than someone who has a degree in something PR related.”

“Why are you working with Dr. Foster?” Porter asked.

“Because I needed the science credits, met an alien, survived said alien’s brother trying to destroy the town we were in, and realized Jane’s the type of genius to forget anything but what she’s doing when she gets really into it,” Darcy said.

“I’m not a genius,” Jane said.

“Yes you are,” Tony, Hank, Darcy, and Jan all said.

“You’ve shown an aptitude for becoming a social media coordinator,” Porter said. “And you’ve also shown common sense by not revealing the identities of Black Widow or Hawkeye despite the fact that you know who they are."

“Well, that seems like a bad plan considering they’re spies and all,” Darcy said. 

“Ideally the PR Department would have a team for traditional media sources – television news, print news, digital news – and one for non-traditional media sources, including social media. That is where Miss Lewis comes in.”

“So you want her to work with the PR team covering the Avengers on social media,” Jane said. “Rather than working with me.”

“I’m gonna need you to go over the specifics if this is a legit job offer,” Darcy said. “Because telling me I’ll be doing Avengers social media is not all that specific.”

“Social media is ever changing,” Porter said. “You’d have to keep up to date with different social media platforms as they evolve and develop. There’s monitoring elements, which you wouldn’t be able to do on your own due to the sheer volume. We can discuss the finer details of precisely what you’d be doing, but I think that you’ll be a valuable asset.”

“Is this to get me away from Jane so she can have a real research assistant?” Darcy asked Phil, looking at him pointedly.

“She’s mine, you can’t have her,” Jane told Porter.

“While Director Fury would prefer if Dr. Foster did have an accredited research and lab assistant, this does not have anything to do with that,” Phil said. 

“I’m sorry, Director Fury would what?” Jane asked. She turned to Darcy. “Why is this the first I’m hearing about this?”

“Because I told him he could shove it where the sun don’t shine,” Darcy said. “You get tunnel vision when you’re working. Someone who actually understands what you’re talking about would get like that too. Plus, I’m your rubber duck.”

“Why are you a rubber duck now?” Clint asked.

“It’s a thing. Programmers talk to rubber ducks to figure out where they went wrong,” Darcy said. “It’s just a way to talk out what’s holding you up or causing problems in your research or work. Jane explains what she’s doing, or what she can’t figure out how to do, and I listen. I rarely ever have any input that makes a difference, but she can usually work it out herself after explaining it to me for twenty minutes.”

“Huh,” Jan said. “That make sense. I did a lot of that in the beginning with Hank.”

“I’ve literally never heard of that before and I have half of a Master’s in mechanical engineering,” Tony said.

“That’s because your rubber duck is Jarvis,” Darcy said.

“Moving on,” Phil said. “SHIELD has arranged offices for both Ms. Sokolof and Mr. Porter, though a more permanent solution will need to be arranged once they each have teams working with them.”

“And whose responsibility will that be?” Tony asked, looking back down at his tablet.

“That can be discussed at a later date,” Phil said.

“Uh, can we get back to the part where you’re trying to steal my assistant away?” Jane asked.

“I’m not trying to steal her, Dr. Foster,” Porter said. “I’m offering her to pay her for tasks she’s already been doing for free. Decisions don’t need to be made right now. Miss Lewis, I’ll have a full list of duties and contract written up. If you do agree to the job you will have to sign a non-disclosure agreement.”

“And why would she have to do that?” Jane asked suspiciously.

“Because I know the secret identities of two SHIELD agent spies, the identity of the Hulk which is apparently a secret, and the identities of Wasp and Ant Man. Presumably I’ll learn other secret identities,” Darcy said. Jane still didn’t look convinced.  

 

Jane remained unconvinced even after Porter and Sokolof left the penthouse with Phil. Natasha and Clint tried to say that Darcy should at least give the job description a look over, but Jane was still suspicious, probably because they worked for SHIELD. Darcy wasn’t saying anything out loud, but everyone was right when they said she was woefully underqualified scientifically to be Jane’s assistant. It wasn’t that she didn’t enjoy working with Jane, because she really did. And she wasn’t committing to anything yet, but it certainly sounded interesting.

So while the others were arguing about legal departments and whether or not they as a group were a public relations nightmare, Darcy went to the room she’d commandeered and opened up her laptop. She’d been on the internet for most of the day already, but she browsed through all the various social media she was on again. She tried to look at what she’d already done with the accounts and what was going on in the social media world with the idea of it being a job.

What had she already done and how did it apply to _working_ for the Avengers? What could she do with it? Did she really want to tackle the monster that was the internet? Tony Stark had enough issues with the internet as himself, much less as Iron Man. And she’d seen what the media had done – and was still doing – to the Fantastic Four, not to mention the X-Men, the Brotherhood, and the other various superheroes / super powered people out there in the world. She’d have to remain neutral on some things obviously, but could she? She was pretty anti-mutant registration as a whole. What if that came up in relation to the Avengers?

Could she actually do this for a job? While she had concerns that Jane might actually forget to eat some days if Darcy wasn’t around to goad her into it, Jane was an adult and had managed to survive on her own this long. So, maybe if the offer looked good. Jane wouldn’t be happy, but Darcy could deal with that. If it was going to be the same as what she’d already been doing, then she could do that near Jane. She’d already been doing that anyways.

“Hey,” somebody said from the open doorway. Darcy looked up to see Clint standing there awkwardly. “Pizza’s here. I volunteered to come get you rather than the disembodied voice from the ceiling that is Jarvis.”

“Do you think I should take the offer? Like, seriously, and not just so that Jane can get an assistant who understands when she’s talking about astrophysics.”

“Yeah, I do,” Clint said. “Carolyn’s been watching your accounts – not to be creepy, but because she finds them amusing. You see Thor as a person, not as an alien. You had a front row seat to the chaos and didn’t go running for the hills like I would’ve before I started working for SHIELD.” At her look, he said, “I was not hired for aliens. I didn’t even know aliens were a thing until Galactus showed up.”

“I need to look the offer over,” Darcy said as she closed her laptop and stood.

“You should get Pepper or Stark to take a look at it,” Clint said. “Just to give Dr. Foster some peace of mind about the offer.”

“You think they’ll actually do that?” Darcy asked as they headed towards the living half of the penthouse.  

“I think Stark wants to get Dr. Foster working for him or with him somehow regardless of the fact that Stark Industries has nothing to do with space,” Clint said. “And Pepper’s nice. I’d say have her sister look over it too, which she will if you want, but I don’t know if the Doc would appreciate that as much as somebody who doesn’t work for SHIELD.”

“I – yeah,” Darcy said. “She’s not pleased with SHIELD at the moment for a variety of reasons. A variety of very good reasons.”

Clint shrugged. “I probably should argue for SHIELD considering they pay me, but I can’t agree with everything they’ve done recently.”

“But you agree with some of it?” Darcy asked.

“Well, hey, the Avengers seems like a good idea,” Clint said as they walked out to the living area.

A marshmallow came flying out of nowhere to hit Clint in the head. He caught it as it fell down from his head and they both looked over to the kitchen area to find Jan, Hank, Tony, and surprisingly enough, Natasha all flinging marshmallows at one another. Steve looked thoroughly baffled and was protecting the open pizza boxes from projectiles. Jane was scowling at her own laptop while cramming pizza in her mouth.

Darcy looked at Clint. “Are you sure the whole Avengers thing was a good idea after all?”

Clint shrugged and took a bite from the marshmallow. “Well, we haven’t killed each other yet,” he said.


End file.
